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Using multiple visual representations to understand the earthquake cycle

The GeoCoder model displays block code (procedural representation, left), the Deformation Simulation (geometric representation, upper right), and the deformation over time graph (graphical representation, bottom right).

Symbols, objects, maps, graphs, and simulations are all powerful tools for conveying information. However, some complex ideas just can’t be captured in a single representation. In these cases, multiple visualizations can be used together to convey and connect several pieces of related information. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, news organizations used a combination of […]

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Support for WATERS curriculum spreads in Oregon

Two teachers with their crumpled paper watershed models

The WATERS (Watershed Awareness using Technology and Environmental Research for Sustainability) project recently ended with a Master Teacher Workshop at our Concord office for selected teachers who participated in the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research with excellence and enthusiasm. The goal of the workshop was to exchange best practices for teaching the now freely available, […]

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What is the future of forest fires? Using Wildfire Explorer to learn about boreal forest succession

Quebec Canada wildfire smoke consumes New Jersey and New York City June 7, 2023

Last summer, thick plumes of wildfire smoke from northern Canada blanketed cities as far south as Washington, D.C., in an eerie orange haze. Record-breaking wildfires in provinces across Canada resulted in catastrophic damage to homes and communities, the destruction of more than 45.7 million acres of forest, and dangerously unhealthy air quality throughout the Northeast […]

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7 ways to get a head start on New Year’s resolutions for your classroom

A visible target-match in Geniventure

Social media has been exploding with New Year’s resolutions since early fall. If you’d like to get a head start on your own educational resolutions for the next calendar year, we’ve got you covered. Want to help students see Earth science as a lab science? Add more data science activities to your high school classes? […]

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Research on system modeling for classroom use

Epidemics model in SageModeler

From local environmental justice issues to global phenomena such as climate change, complex problems often require systems thinking to address them. Since 2018, the National Science Foundation-funded Multilevel Computational Modeling project, a collaboration between the Concord Consortium and the CREATE for STEM Institute at Michigan State University, has researched how the use of our SageModeler […]

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Under the sea: How a dive to the seafloor can help students unlock Earth’s past

Seafloor spreading modeled in TecRocks Explorer

Stephanie Seevers is an Earth science teacher in Colorado and a consultant on the TecRocks project. I was talking to my 9th grade Earth and Space Science students recently about why they think so many people lack a solid understanding of our planet and its history. We brainstormed ideas, and while several theories sounded valid, […]

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Rocks and plate tectonics reimagined

TecRocks data table

Across the Earth, rock is being created, destroyed, and transformed all the time. If you were to witness a volcanic eruption up close, you would see the birth of new rock. While such an eruption results in a dramatic display of Earth’s power, many rock-forming processes are invisible as they take place deep beneath Earth’s […]

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A rocky road to curiosity

TecRocks Explorer

Ambitious Science Teaching now includes a focus on equity and reaching diverse student populations. One principle of the Critical and Cultural Approaches to Ambitious Science Teaching (C2-AST) framework (Thompson et al., 2021) is to situate learning around phenomena that prioritizes students’ communities and cultures, their local environment, and daily experience. While this can be a […]

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